"Even women cannot learn patience and resignation in a day."
He sprang up as though inactivity had become unbearable.
"Aunt Magda—if she is strong enough—I want to see Hildegarde."
"Why?"
Involuntarily their eyes met in a quick flash of understanding.
"Because I think that it is time for our relationship to each other to be clearly settled," he said. "Ever since our childhood it has been an unwritten understanding that if Hildegarde would have me we should marry; and so I have come to ask her—if she will be my wife."
He spoke bluntly, coldly, not as he had meant to speak, but the steady gaze on his face shook his composure.
"Have you the right to ask her that?"
"Aunt Magda!"
"Or, after all, have you been playing with the affections of a girl who has the right to my protection?"